CYMBALISTIC: New Holy Grails are in! My stock was getting pretty depleted after a wild couple of weeks of sales. I got some big thin jazz cymbals, if anybody needs a new main axe— though […]
False prodigies
My apologies for the many wordy posts lately. I don’t want to be a words/opinions guy. I’m working on a lot of outside stuff, so I have to post what I have, and that happens […]
Page o’ coordination: Freddie Waits Latin
Last week I picked up kind of a random live Freddie Hubbard CD from Music Millennium— I forget the title, it’s in the car— with Freddie Waits on drums. I’ve been wanting to hear more of […]
What time signature it’s “really” in
A little sidebar on the subject of time signatures, everyone’s favorite topic to be confused about. We’re resolving a lot of little outstanding issues here lately. Time signatures (I prefer the word meter) are a little […]
Seattle meet wrap-up
Well, it was small but mighty. The cymbal meet in Seattle confirmed a lot of things I already felt about the Cymbal & Gong instruments, and gave me a lot of valuable information from some […]
UPDATE: Seattle cymbal meet TODAY – Monday Dec. 13
UPDATE THRICE: The Seattle meet is TODAY, 5-9pm. If you’re in Seattle and want to come hang out with some great drummers, text me at 503.380.9259, and I’ll give you the details. UPDATE AGAIN: The meet […]
Very occasional quote of the day: the hands are like monsters
From the late Barry Harris: “Are the hands doing something they’re used to doing, or is the mind leading the hands? Because the hands are like monsters— and they have a separate entity— and they […]
Drum solo transcription: Tony Williams – Moment’s Notice – 01
In honor of what would have been Tony Williams’s 76th birthday, here’s the first part of a solo I’ve been listening to since college— Troyland apartments at USC, 1988, to be exact. I put this […]
Transcription: Billy Cobham – More
Billy Cobham playing a swing tune in kind of a show band setting here, on Stanley Turrentine’s album The Sugar Man. A lot of it hardly merits a full transcription, except it’s good to see […]
Everything you know about drumming is wrong
Sometimes I get really cranky about drumming conversations on the internet. My paranoid tone here is half in jest. Tune in to the Firesign Theater recording on the left for more laffs. BELIEVE IT NOW: […]
Daily best music in the world: Freddie Hubbard – Jodo
Absolutely killing tune here— Jodo by Freddie Hubbard, from his album Blue Spirits. Pete La Roca is on drums. Soloists are Hubbard, Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, and La Roca. I sometimes forget La Roca is […]
Feel and style
Just a brief discussion of the musical terms feel and style. In normal professional musician usage they are often interchangeable, referring to the type of accompaniment to be played by the rhythm section. What kind of a […]